Top 7 Business/Money Books for Streamers

Lists normally aren’t my thing, but I think it’s conducive to this kind of article. This week we’re covering 7 of my favorite books that are highly relevant to managing your business and personal finances. The list started at 4 books but quickly grew, mostly because I love books. I had to force myself to stop at 7 so this wasn’t way too long to read.

Running a business

You aren’t the first to run a small business and you certainly won’t be the last. There are a ton of books out there that could help you work a little more effectively, but these are my favorites. Each covers a slightly different aspect of running a business. I would be shocked if these weren’t available in your local library.

The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber

The E-Myth (E being entrepreneur) will show you how to balance the different aspects of being a business owner. The basic idea is that there is technical, managerial, and CEO (visionary) work that needs to go into creating and running a business. Someone needs to get the work done, someone needs to make sure the day to day operations continue, and someone needs to be looking in to the future and planning. When you start it’s just you and it’s hard to balance all of those. Especially if you really like one of them but can’t stand another!

Michael Gerber does a really good job of walking you through the different roles, why they’re important, and how to make sure you’re not missing important duties while running the business.

Purple Cow, Seth Godin

Be unique and remarkable. Be the purple cow in a field of normal cows that sticks out like a sore thumb and forces you to notice it. Seth Godin’s book on marketing provides valuable information for streamers, even though you aren’t making a physical product. The basic summary is make a great product and target the people who will talk about your product.

How does this translate to you? Create a great stream. Easy to say, harder to do. Make sure each broadcast is awesome. Make sure your emotes are something your subs want to use on other channels. Create a great community that engages each other without you needing to be there. Be the purple cow.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey

This one is hardly an inspirational book but it’s a remarkably useful book. Covey offers an awesome framework for being effective at whatever it is you’re trying to do. It’s all about how to form good habits that will keep you on task and productive, even in the times where you might otherwise veer off course. While I admit that I don’t keep to all of these most of the time (damn you, Twitch and YouTube) it’s still a great read and has helped me re-focus more than once.

One of my favorite insights from Covey, and one that I constantly have to remind myself to practice, is the idea of the abundance mentality. Basically, Covey proposes that there is a world of opportunity out there and if you approach it expecting that there will be ample opportunity you will find ample opportunity. This is opposed to the scarcity mindset where your view is there is a limited amount of opportunity so if someone takes an opportunity it’s lost to you. This is particularly relevant to streamers. Someone else streaming doesn’t take your viewers, it just creates opportunities for viewers to experience new things. It’s on you to find the way to bring the abundance of available viewers into your stream.

The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell’s book is all about how ideas, movements, or trends cross from being isolated to catching on like mad. This could be things like fidget spinners, beanie babies, streaming as a way to earn income, disease spreading from patient 0, or even a political movement. It’s a study in how to reach critical mass which is clearly relevant to you as a streamer. How do you reach your tipping point where your popularity and stream quality make you so large that you catch like wildfire? It might not have the exact formula but it can give you some really insightful ideas.

Personal Finance

As I’ve said many times before, it’s usually the owner’s expenses that kill a small business, not the business expense. Managing your personal finances is therefore paramount to running your business, especially in the early days. These books will set you up with the basics of running your personal finances and help get you in the right mindset to continue making good money decisions.

The Richest Man in Babylon, George Clason

This is up there for my favorite books ever. It’s really great, simple advice told in an interesting format. This book will teach you the personal finance basics you need. Yes, there’s more complexity in our financial world than there was back in Babylonian times. However, the foundation you get here will make the rest of it easier. I’ve considered giving a copy of this book to every planning client because I think it’s that valuable.

Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

This and the next book go more in depth into the behavioral side of personal finance. I love it because that’s where the magic really happens. After all, we all know that diet and exercise are the key to being in good physical shape. How many of us wish we were in slightly better shape? I certainly do. The same is true of your finances. Even though the basics aren’t that hard and you can learn them by reading The Richest Man in Babylon we still don’t always implement.

In my mind Thinking Fast and Slow is the book that really started the academic practice of behavioral finance. In this book, you’ll learn all of the basics about how we are ill-prepared to deal with long term planning. Luckily, you’ll also learn some great ways to help mitigate the issue. It’s long and can get somewhat academic but I think it’s worth it.

The Laws of Wealth, Dr. Daniel Crosby

The Laws of Wealth will teach you the important foundation you need to understand your own brain and its relationship with money. Also, the writing is fantastic and entertaining. While this is a subject I love I know not everyone is as fond of personal finance. This book is so well written that even if you fall in the second camp you’ll enjoy reading it.

Conclusion

I’ve just assigned you with well over 2,000 pages of reading. Enjoy! Trust me, it’ll be a treat and you’ll come out of it with a mess of great ideas. Whenever I read one of these books the biggest issue I have is picking just one action to take. I’d recommend keeping a notebook and pen nearby so you can write down ideas as you read.

Are there any books you think I missed? Is there something that you want me to cover? Leave a comment, I’d love the feedback.